Let Me Burn
by Saiph Nebula
Summary: Post MGS2. Raiden reflects on his life after saving Sunny.


Let Me Burn

By Saiph Nebula

* * *

Jack looked down at the unconscious child in his arms. She bore a striking resemblance to her late mother, Olga Gurlukovich. With the memory of the woman who'd been killed in front of him so fresh in his mind, just looking at the child's motionless features had his gut twisting painfully with regret and shame. Jack couldn't help but feel responsible for this small girl. Her mother had sacrificed everything to keep her alive; her troops – who were like family, her very freedom to live and dream of any normal sort of life for them both as mother and daughter. It had all been snatched away from them both by The Patriots. And he too had been used in turn, his life becoming connected to the child Olga would never even hold through his nanomachines, to ensure the success of their plan. One child's life had been no more then a bargaining chip to them.

Jack sighed, carefully placing Sunny in the passanger seat of the car given to him by 'Big Mama'. It had been she who'd revealed Sunny's location – though not without a price. But Jack had done it, he'd completed his mission to save the child from the Patriot's hold – and he'd done it alone.

Silently slipping into the driver's seat, Jack leaned his forearms against the wheel, hunching over as a spasm of pain ripped through him.

_Don't think about them, don't think about any of that…_

But he couldn't not. The reminder of his isolation made him remember a time that had once been filled with hope, and love, and life…

That was gone now. That life, that future, had been lost. He had always known it was just a matter of time, though he tried to deny it. Watching Rose grow over the passing weeks, seeing her stomach slowly swell with his child and glow with signs of the life within her, it had felt like watching the countdown on a bomb. And with it, he slowly began to lose grip on the things he'd thought he wanted.

"_Find something to believe in… pass it on…"_

It had seemed so simple at first, but as days became weeks and the weeks turned into months, Jack still couldn't find his one true purpose in life. Words like 'father' and 'husband' held no meaning to him, though it shamed him to admit it. All he understood was death and battle. What could he pass on from that? What else could he believe in when it was all he'd known since he was six years old?

So, when he'd received that call from the hospital and seen Rose for the final time… empty of life… he'd known. His place _wasn't_ with her.

It had been a sign, only confirming what he'd always known to be his purpose. Jack did not bring life into the world, he did not even deserve such a gift. All he was good for was taking it away.

He had thought that after grieving for his lost family, for the child he would never know and who's life had never truly begun, he'd be able to feel whole again, now that he knew where he was supposed to be. Wandering the globe, isolating himself from the world, time passed quickly. His future became nothing but the next day, focusing on surviving until then. But he never healed. The hole in his chest, where his heart should have been never seemed to fill. Each day it grew wider, and every memory of his past dug deeper, until he was sure that one day, there would be nothing left. He would collapse in on himself from being so empty. He thought he would go insane with the pain and the lonliness.

Until she had come to him in a dream. Jack had thought Olga's continuous reoccurrences when he'd slept had been nothing but a nightmare. "Failure" she'd whisper. "Murderer" the voices told him. He didn't see the faces of the people he'd killed when he woke. He saw hers, the fallen soldier, imposed on the body of a child, looking just as lost and alone as he was.

That was how he'd come to play the role of saviour, instead of killer. Sunny was his redemption, his chance to prove that he had not forgotten the sacrifices made for his miserable life. Nor would he abandon her to an unknown fate, one just as empty and worthless as his own.

She didn't wake as they crossed the country, travelling by night and sleeping by day. He fed her through an I.V to keep her alive and well-nourished now that she was no longer connected to The Patriot's life support system. Snake and Otacon were waiting for them, and Jack was not so naive as to believe that they were solely interested in Sunny's safety. She was their only link to The Patriots now.

He didn't blame them for their selfishness, they were trying to save the world after all. Whereas he was only thinking of his own atonement; perhaps now he'd find some peace, even it were just for a moment, just enough to know that he _could_.

Would Sunny's freedom be enough though, when weighed against the sins of his past?

...He didn't care. He knew he would burn someday for all he'd done, and he welcomed it. Welcomed the pain and the liberation it would bring with open arms. His life was no longer tied to Sunny's, his loyalty to no Government or Organisation. No lover to miss him, no family to mourn…

He was free to live and die as he chose.

_And he would_ _choose_.

* * *


End file.
